1/06/2012

Floricide

Story Sent in by Jason:

Eva and I had been on a couple of dates, and for our third date, I planned to take her out to a planetarium show and then out to a night picnic. However, she fell ill a day before the date, and so she called me to postpone.

I felt bad for her, and I decided to pick her up some flowers. Not a huge bouquet, but just something thoughtful.

I was in touch with her over the following day or two to see if she needed anything, and once she seemed to be on the mend, it seemed safe to pay her a surprise visit.

I arrived at her place and rang the bell. She came to the door and her eyes lit up when she saw me. Then she saw the flowers.

"What the—you bought me flowers?"

"Yes. Just a little get well present."

She shivered, and I thought for a moment that she was going to buckle in half. "Oh my God... you bought me flowers..." she shivered more, then started to cry.

"It was really nothing," I said, "I just want you to feel better."

"What?" She wiped her eyes. "This isn't me being grateful. You killed these harmless flowers for me?"

"Huh? I—I bought them at a florist."

"You bought dead flowers for me?"

"I—"

"You're supporting the murder of defenseless flowers. Did you know that?"

It hadn't occurred to me. She went on, "These were growing in a field somewhere or else forced to grow in a nursery somewhere, and then at their most beautiful, a flower killer came in and cut them away."

"I'm sorry, Eva. I really didn't know that you felt so strongly about flowers."

"They're living things!" she said, "It's like killing any other living thing! If you don't have any guilt about being complicit in the face of flower murder, then how will you take it when someone close to you is murdered?"

Before I could reply, she said, "Say 'I'm sorry' to the flowers."

I replied, "They're dead. They can't hear me. Plus, they're flowers."

"Apologize to them!"

"No."

She shoved me out of her house and slammed the door in my face. I gave the flowers to another friend of mine. She was very grateful for them and it helped to strengthen our friendship, I guess, so the whole thing wasn't a total loss. I never spoke to Eva again.

22 comments:

  1. I get the feeling she didn't want to go out with you to begin with, which is why she cancelled with a sudden illness in the first place. Then you paid her a surprise visit, which she may have interpreted as creepy, especially if she wasn't into you. So she threw a fit about the flowers just to get you to leave. Even the most tree-hugging-type women I know still would love getting flowers.

    Also, if you want to get technical, not all flowers are "dead plants." I cut flowers off the tip of my rose bush almost all year long, and it is certainly very much alive as we speak. It's just like giving it a haircut :-)

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  2. She was out of ways to avoid you, so she made something up on the spot. I'm assuming at some point the two of you shared a meal while out on the first couple dates - so I doubt she actually took issue with killing plants.

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  3. Whatever her deal is, this woman is about as romantic as foot fungus, and the OP dodged a major bullet.

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  4. Yeah, I agree with Steve and Jessie. the "sudden illness" thing sounds like a BS excuse, and her eyes "lighting up" when she saw you sounds like just you deluding yourself into thinking that things were going well. Sorry, but that's just how it is. If it makes you feel better, you sound like a really nice guy who deserves a hug. Unfortunately I can't give you one, since as a dog my paws don't reach that high and my feral instincts would probably make me go for your throat. Maybe Rawr the Dinosaur should do it.

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  5. I've known girls exactly like this: they impose their own personal standards on the whole world out of self-righteousness and insecurity. If you have never given money to a charity that feeds starving children in Africa, you're an awful person... if you would like to own a big house someday, you're a wasteful decadent type. That sort of thing. The freaking out over cut flowers is only the tip of a huge ugly iceberg, trust me... definitely major bullet dodged.

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  6. I'm wondering what this woman eats if she can't stand even taking a cutting off of a plant?

    (I was planning to use the "haircut" analogy, but I see Steve beat me to it.)

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  7. Ellendra: that sort of thinking is very warped in my opinion, so there's a good chance the girl in this story doesn't think twice about eating vegetables, and her standards probably apply mostly to everyone else but her.

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  8. Chivalry isn't dead, this b**ch murdered it. Poor, defenseless chivalry. Chivalry killer.

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  9. @ churro: Or it's only pretty plants that matter. Kind of like how some people will get horrified at eating dog meat, yet are perfectly fine with lobsters being boiled alive.

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  10. Yeah, Baku, you know it... the problem with having these rigid absolute positions is that it's very hard to enforce or maintain them consistently. It wouldn't even bother me if it was something personal, but they're often used to beat up others for not living up to one's standards.

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  11. The problem with eating dog meat is a question of an animal's purpose rather than that of butchering an animal. A dog's relation to man is to serve him, ie. to be a companion. You do not eat your companions. This argument could be made for other animals that we eat (ex. cows serve man with milk, chicken give humans their eggs, etc.)

    On the other hand, I do agree that it sounds pretty nasty to boil an animal alive (or insects such as lobsters) To me that just sounds wrong. Pretty much just like skinning a fish alive sounds wrong too (and we all like to eat fish because they are delicious). There are many atrocities and horrible acts that we impose on the world and on our environment. And poor are all the other animals that suffer thanks to us. However, it is so much easier to just ignore all these problems and hide inside our sheltered urban cities. We could cry foul and pretend to never eat meat again. Though on the other hand, I just came back from lunch and had a delicious turkey sandwich. And I will probably continue to eat meat and other delicacies that were made off the sufferings of other animals.

    I could give off a list of things wrong with this world, such as politics, food, garbage disposal, pollution and more. There are too many problems for one person to fix them all. Is it OK to just ignore and hide our heads in the sand? What if we each tackled one problem and solved them one at a time? Would solving one problem introduce two new problems? You could go insane. Look at how I have already written a long rant just because some lonely girl does not like cut flowers! Next time he should offer her synthetic flowers, attached with a pamphlet detailing the pollution involved in manufacturing them in China.

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  12. ^Lobsters are not insects and I have to disagree with you when you say animals have a purpose, we use them yes but the 'purpose' such as the dog being a companion as you say is wholly assigned by us humans and is not inherent in the organism itself. Dogs are eaten in some parts of the world as I'm sure you know so they are not seen as companions everywhere.

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  13. ^ @ ashley, you beat me to it. i was reading dan's post, and completely missed every point after i got to the lobster/insect phrase...wtduece? and you beat me to the point of dogs being delicasies in some parts of the world. what it boils down to is what jessie, sparkina, and wolfie said

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  14. Back on topic...

    As the resident florist here I can attest that fresh cut flowers are very much alive. Some, like Tulips are autotropic and they continue to grow significantly after being cut and arranged.

    This lady crazy lady is 'as crazy does' and by all accounts was simply wanting to ditch the OP.

    Someone may have gotten to her and convinced her that the 'night picnic' was a lead-in to sex and she called off the date for that reason.

    Her eyes 'lighting up' were not from eager anticipation but more of sheer surprise, with a dash of 'Oh Sh!t' thrown in.

    Flowers have a purpose: Making our would brighter -- Sometimes by bringing them indoors as fresh cut flowers. Most all women love them - If they are from the right guy, period.

    Please note: No dogs or lobsters were harmed in the making of this post!

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  15. I didn't know we had a resident florist. Sweet!

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  16. Also, I will say (without jumping into the fray regarding whether or not we should boil our prospective supper alive or subjugate it into pet hood), if I remember my invertebrate zo class correctly from all those many decades ago, lobsters - like insects - are athropods. Dogs - furry, familial, vertebral beings that they are - are quite different.

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  17. You do not need to agree with my opinions, but please, at please do not swear (I do not like being called a deuce, I won't step down to that level) at me. It is simply not nice.

    Please take my opinions with a hint of salt and please attach the implied disclaimer "All opinions expressed within this post are of the author's and they do not require you to agree with them, but you are more than welcome to discuss and argue."

    Ashley, you are right to say that "purpose" is dependant on the relationship, ie. a purpose of a dog is different in relationship to itself, to a human, to a crab, or to any other participant in its environment (whether direct or indirect).

    Please note that my post was a mere thought trying to deduce why we do not eat dogs in North America (because dogs are friends to man rather than food).

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  18. Dan, R wasn't insulting you - I think you completely misinterpreted what he was saying. See the following link:

    http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-of/what-the-deuce

    As you can see, "what the deuce" actually has an exceptionally low vulgarity score, and I think the only reason it got ANY vulgarity votes is because some people unfamiliar with the etymology thought that the word "deuce" referred to the "number 2 bathroom function", ie, a turd. In fact, "what the deuce" is a synonym of "What the dickens" or "what the devil" - see etymology link below.

    http://blog.oup.com/2007/09/devil/

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  19. At Dan, asides from the "lobsters are insects" part, the only other thing I want to disagree with is your claim "that we all like to eat fish". I do not like to each fish. I can barely stand Sole, and that is only because it has almost no fish-like flavour.

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  20. Thanks for the explanation. I completed misconstrued R's sentence. Sorry for any misunderstandings! No hard feelings.

    I always used to think that lobsters are supposed to be insects. And so I did a quick check on Google about this. Apparently, lobsters, like insects, are arthropods, but lobsters do not belong in the same subgroup as insects do. So in short, lobsters are kind of related, but are not insects. I apologize for my mistake. By hey, I learned something! :)

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  21. I dislike surprise visits.

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  22. She may have been creeped out by your surprise visit. Have you been to her house before? If not, that's definitely creepy enough to get a bad excuse.

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